Generic HtmlHelper for creating html table from list of any type

Question

I would like to create a HtmlHelper for creating a html table. I would like the helper to be able to take a list of any type of object and a list of the properties of the object to display as columns. Something like this:

public static HtmlString Table(this HtmlHelper helper, List<T> data, List<string> headers)
    {
        //Tags
        TagBuilder table = new TagBuilder("table");
        TagBuilder tr = new TagBuilder("tr");
        TagBuilder td = new TagBuilder("td");
        TagBuilder th = new TagBuilder("th");

        //Inner html of table
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

        //Add headers
        foreach (var s in headers)
        {
            th.InnerHtml = s;
            tr.InnerHtml += th.ToString();
        }
        sb.Append(tr.ToString());

        //Add data
        foreach (var d in data)
        {
            tr.InnerHtml = "";
            foreach (var h in headers)
            {
                td.InnerHtml = d.h.ToString();
                tr.InnerHtml += td.ToString();
            }
            sb.Append(tr.ToString());
        }

        table.InnerHtml = sb.ToString();
        return new HtmlString(table.ToString());
    }

This code will of course not work, but I am wondering if it would be possible to make something similar? And how I might go about doing that.

EDIT:

I chose the following solution, the idea was that the table should only contain the elements specified in the headers list, so this is what i came up with:

public static HtmlString Table<T>(this HtmlHelper helper, List<T> data, List<string> headers)
{
    //Tags
    TagBuilder table = new TagBuilder("table");
    TagBuilder tr = new TagBuilder("tr");
    TagBuilder td = new TagBuilder("td");
    TagBuilder th = new TagBuilder("th");

    //Inner html of table
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

    //Add headers
    foreach (var s in headers)
    {
        th.InnerHtml = s;
        tr.InnerHtml += th.ToString();
    }
    sb.Append(tr.ToString());

    //Add data
    foreach (var d in data)
    {
        tr.InnerHtml = "";
        foreach (var h in headers)
        {
            td.InnerHtml = d.GetType().GetProperty(h).GetValue(d, null).ToString();
            tr.InnerHtml += td.ToString();
        }
        sb.Append(tr.ToString());
    }

    table.InnerHtml = sb.ToString();
    return new HtmlString(table.ToString());
}

Answer 1

Hi I updated your code for the .NET core version. good luck

    public static IHtmlContent Table<T>(IList<T> data, IList<(string propertyName, string colName)> headers)
    {
        //Tags
        var table = new TagBuilder("table");
        var tr = new TagBuilder("tr");
        
        //Add headers
        foreach (var s in headers)
        {
            var th = new TagBuilder("th");
            th.InnerHtml.Append(s.colName);
            tr.InnerHtml.AppendHtml(th);
        }
        table.InnerHtml.AppendHtml(tr);

        //Add data
        foreach (var d in data)
        {
            tr = new TagBuilder("tr");
            foreach (var h in headers)
            {
                var td = new TagBuilder("td");
                td.InnerHtml.Append( d.GetType().GetProperty(h.propertyName).GetValue(d, null)?.ToString());
                tr.InnerHtml.AppendHtml(td);
            }
            
            table.InnerHtml.AppendHtml(tr);
        }

        return table;
    }